The key objective of any for profit business large or small is to generate revenue. Not so long ago a business had no option but to accept payment at its premises or point of sale, this restricted growth and operations.

The advent of the internet has truly transformed the rules of business engagement. It gave birth to hyperconnectivity, which to a great extent leveled the playing field for small- and medium-sized enterprises.

This brought attention to the various ways a business can process and receive payments online. Over the years various methods have been utilized for online payment processing such as credit/debit cards, virtual wallets, virtual terminals etc. Within this post, we will focus on why ACH is a better payment processing option as compared to more traditional methods such as credit/debit cards.

What Is ACH?

ACH stands for “Automated Clearing House.” It is the payment network used for transfer and clearance of electronic checks or e-checks. E-check is a way to move money between banks without using paper checks, wire transfers, credit card networks, or cash. It is generated electronically and it can be transferred easily anywhere around the globe.

Why Your Business Should Use ACH As A Primary Payment Mechanism:

Reasonable Transaction Cost:

The cost associated with payment processing is one of the highest variable costs for any business. One of the biggest advantages of ACH is low processing fees, compared to traditional payment methods such as checks or credit cards.

Transaction costs on credit/debit cards can be between 2-3%. According to the Wall Street Journal, on average it can cost between $4 to $20 (for a $100 transaction) to write a check once you factor in printing, payment initiation, authorization, signing, mailing cost, and time spent. With an ACH, the transaction cost between the two bank accounts is almost negligible. Depending on your payment gateways ACH transaction can cost between $0.25 -$1 for the same $100.

Quick Processing:

Immediate or delayed access to revenue funds can have a far-reaching operational impact on any business. Depending on your payment gateway you can have a same day transfer through ACH. This can greatly improve your business’s workflow efficiency and flexibility with payments as it allows you immediate access to cash.

Better Security:

ACH gets rid of some of the most common pitfalls of using traditional payment methods. For instance, credit card data can be stolen. ACH removes the need for customers to provide their confidential details to merchants. Similarly, traditional checks can be misplaced and are susceptible to signature forgery. ACH removes these risks through facilitating direct transfers and removing intermediaries.

Operational Convenience:

Constantly following up with your customers for payment or failed payments due to credit cards expiring? ACH makes the whole process hassle-free for both your business and the customer by facilitating a direct transaction between your businesses’ and customers’ bank accounts.

Preferred Funding:

While each bank has its own policy on paper checks and ACH transactions, a bank will usually prefer processing ACH payments first. For instance, suppose your customer has $1,500 in their checking account. If you process an $800 ACH payment on the same day in which someone else tries to cash an $800 paper check, the ACH is paid first.

Gone are the days when one of the only means to rob someone was with a weapon. As beneficial as it is, widespread penetration of technology within every aspect of our businesses and lives has opened us up to a host of potential pitfalls. The greatest of them being unauthorized access and theft of sensitive information.

The past 18 months have not been very rosy on the cybersecurity front. Some of the biggest business names such as: Google, Chipotle, Kmart and Brooks Brothers have been shamed by massive data breaches.

This underscores the fact that cybersecurity is not to be ignored and must be given its due share in time and resources. Sharp focus on cybersecurity is just as crucial for small businesses as it is for a large corporation. In fact, according to 2018 Data Breach Investigations Report by Verizon over 60% of data breach attacks were targeted at small businesses. Within this article, we intend to discuss a few cybersecurity best practices for small businesses.

Why Small Businesses Are A Hacker Magnet:

It is important to first understand why hackers often gravitate towards small businesses. To start off, small businesses can be quite complacent about cybersecurity-allocating very few resources to it. They often believe that since they are a small business they are not “juicy” enough to be breached. This mindset makes small businesses a soft target for hackers.

It is also easier to extort a ransom from a small business since even a minor cyber breach can shatter them.

Key Categories Of Cyberattacks:

In most instances, the end goal of any cyber breach is to gain access to sensitive business information such as customer information or financials. Although cyber protection techniques and protocols have come a long way in recent years, hackers have also kept up with the latest technology. With every passing day, they refine their ways. Following are some of the most common ways a cyber breach happens:

Phishing: This is the go-to cyber theft technique for most hackers. It involves collecting sensitive information such as login information or credit card information through a fake website disguised as a legitimate business.

DDoS: An acronym for “distributed denial of service,” DDoS attacks occur when a server is intentionally overloaded with requests until it shuts down the target's website or network system.

Inside attack: This is when someone with administrative privileges, usually from within the organization, deliberately misuses their credentials to gain access to sensitive information. Resentful employees could present a serious concern here in the absence of relevant cybersecurity protocols.

Malware: It stands for "malicious software" and refers to any program or software placed within the target's system with the objective to cause damage or gain unauthorized access. It includes: viruses, worms, Trojans, ransomware, and spyware.

Ransomware: One of the most widespread cybertheft methods, ransomware is a type of malware that infects the system and, as the name implies, demands a ransom. Usually, ransomware locks you out of your system and demands money in exchange for access or threatens to publish sensitive information if you don't pay.

What Cybersecurity Solutions Are There For Small Businesses?

Here are a few key measures that you must consider for your small business:

Antivirus: The very first step should be to install a strong antivirus program on your network. It will keep you safe against most types of malware. There are plenty of well known antivirus programs available for affordable prices, and be sure to keep the program updated.

Firewalls: A firewall provides an added layer of safety by denying system or network access to an unauthorized user. Most current operating systems such as Windows 10 come with firewall software.

Data backup solutions: Back up your data to ensure that any sensitive information can be retrieved quickly and reliably if a cyber breach takes place.

Best Practices For Small Business Cybersecurity:

It’s paramount to your business’s safety that you employ company-wide safety practices and onboard all the stakeholders including your employees. Following are some good places to start:

Updated Cybersecurity Software:

Most small businesses do not pay attention to their cybersecurity, those that do often only have the bare minimum safety measures in place. Many run their websites and other digital assets with outdated anti-virus and protection programs. This makes them an easy target for even a novice hacker. It cannot be stressed enough how important it is to keep your protection programs updated, it takes almost no effort and is not resource intensive.

Employee Education:

It’s crucial to your business’s safety that your employees clearly understand how such attacks happen and how to stay safe while using the business’s systems. This does not need to be an exhaustive exercise, a regular quarterly course/seminar would fit the bill.

Create A Preventive:

Make sure that every employee and other stakeholders such as suppliers and business affiliates understand what’s at stake. A conscious effort should be made in order to create a culture that places high importance on cybersecurity. This can be achieved by implementing company-wide security policies, starting with something as simple as password creation protocols.

Although understanding every aspect of cybersecurity is beyond the scope of a single article we hope that we have managed to open your mind to the crucial importance of digital security for your small business’s success.

We would love to hear from you on this. Drop us a PM on our Facebook page or get in touch with us at Chat@SwiftlyPaid.com

The Dodd Frank act is a point of contention with the recent changes. With 16 sections and a total of 16 titles containing 243 rules which require 67 studies and 22 periodic reports, this is an immense beast. As of May 25th, a repeal of the Durbin Amendment had been slipped into the Republican anti-Dodd Frank bill. Named after Richard Durbin, Senator of Illinois, the Durbin amendment put price control deemed by the Federal government as “reasonable and proportional to the cost” on fees which banks and credit unions charge retailers for debit card purchases. The purpose of this series is to track the immediate impact of big-picture policy changes on small businesses.

Calculations of Federal Reserve data shows that retailers took in $42 billion because of the Durbin Amendment: the savings are as good as the number sounds for larger businesses and those that sold bigger ticket items. However small businesses are feeling the impact of this form of price control. As Harry Alford, cofounder and president/CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, explains

So while there are large savings, small businesses did not necessarily experience a positive impact from the Durbin Amendment. The savings that price controls were supposed to incur were meant to be felt by consumers were nearly not present. Since so many businesses have been losing free checking as well, these businesses are now passing through fees to consumers who end up shouldering the higher costs.

With all that we’ve covered, Jeb Hensarling, Republican chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said he agrees with the removal of the provision that would have capped prices stores pay banks when consumers use debit cards. With the huge amount of conflicting interpretations on the who’s who with regards to the Durbin Amendment’s impact, one thing is very clear: large businesses are saving billions while retaining their old pricing, and struggling families are losing financial incentives with America’s small businesses. There is the chance that repealing the Durbin Amendment could possibly raise prices further, but we must also consider the fact that forcibly limiting those costs in one place can effect in costs increases elsewhere for those who needed them lowered the most. Stay tuned as we continue to cover the small business impact of the Dodd Frank act.

Matthew Koren is the President of Swiftly Paid, a credit card processing and payroll service provider located in Portland, OR. He runs this company in addition to his management consulting practice helping clients implement innovative strategic solutions to business critical issues. You can contact him by filling out the Contact Us page, or by calling 503-765-6940.

Last Thursday, AHCA passed by a small margin of votes. It passed so fast after a last compromise that there was no time to study the bill, nor did the congressional accounting branch assess costs and impact before it hits the public. This change would remove a huge amount of regulation: health insurance would in theory be more accessible, cheaper, and businesses would have more flexibility to provide for the needs of their employees. However, the original intention of such an expansive overhead created by the ACA was “to guarantee people in the system that their financial roof won’t collapse with one serious medical emergency.”

Business Insider provides a great example of how this might look: A company could have operations in South Carolina and Vermont. If South Carolina is granted a waiver and drops the lifetime limit on maternity care for insurance plans, the company could use that baseline to put a lifetime cap on maternity care for employees in Vermont as well.”

Ultra-small businesses might not be as heavily impacted by these changes however we might start seeing businesses with over 50 employees provide the hefty yet wide coverage that ACA demanded from businesses. It will be harder for certain small businesses to buy health coverage: this same bill also removes the tax credit available to companies with fewer than 25 employees. It is very worth noting that AHCA also bakes in a very real age tax that would force older adults to pay extremely high premiums compared to their younger counterparts.

As a small business employee or owner, here are some takeaways:

Businesses that rely on a core employees will be heavily impacted by a system that punishes older workers

The health insurance landscape is about to shift, it will probably not stop changing for a while, so buckle down.

Business owners will have the flexibility to drop those protections on their own volition, or keep them. Regardless, the overhead will cost them.

Ultimately, the coverage that ACA had previously defined as a given is dissolving: it’ll ultimately be up to business owners to protect their own employees.

Matthew Koren is the President of Swiftly Paid, a credit card processing and payroll service provider located in Portland, OR. He runs this company in addition to his management consulting practice helping clients implement innovative strategic solutions to business critical issues. You can contact him by filling out the Contact Us page, or by calling 503-765-6940.

While mobile payments are relatively new, there’s an emerging group of people who are starting to re-think how they relate to money, and this tech is the edge of this (See accenture page 21). It’s estimated that mobile payment volume will hit the 75 billion dollar marker with leading the US and China being in the lead for adopters. This number is supposedly small. While growing, most folks are still anchored to traditional payment methods: we are at a point of transition. We are estimating an 80% growth is mobile payment users between 2015-2020.

RIght now, there is no clear winner of the mobile payment industry, it’s still young, which means there’s room to influence the trajectory of your customer’s perceptions. The current challenge all mobile payment services are struggling with are how to penetrate new markets, but this is in all likelihood an inevitability (keyword: value). Right now, early adopters of mobile payments appear to be young people and the tech-trendy individuals are going for the newest, most convenient transaction experience with the least amount of hassle. It is worth noting there is a both slow but linear growth in other market segments.

Matthew Koren is the President of Swiftly Paid, a credit card processing and payroll service provider located in Portland, OR. He runs this company in addition to his management consulting practice helping clients implement innovative strategic solutions to business critical issues. You can contact him by filling out the Contact Us page, or by calling 503-765-6940.

It’s our seventh birthday! We’re celebrating the opportunity to help our clients rest well at night knowing that their businesses’ cashflow is in good hands. Come join us on March 31st at Hobo's in Downtown Portland. This past year we successfully launched our new payroll service with three happy clients. Reach out to learn about our special pricing for sole proprietors and single member LLC’s or S-Corporations.

We’ve always believed that being grateful and showing gratitude is essential in building a solid, lasting business. Since it’s our birthday, and most businesses don't make it their 5th year, we figured we might as well list seven (7) things that we’re grateful for in our lives, one for each year we've been in business:

Our customers, who do cool and awesome things with their time and effort.

Our friends and family who support and love us when we’re not working away at getting you swiftly paid.

The community that supports us on a day-to-day basis (who says business partners can’t also be friends?).

The team at Swiftly Paid for making it possible for me to have reasonable work hours and a vacation now and again.

SPRING! And SUN!

The ever-evolving and exciting world of payment processing. It seems like only constantly moving targets keep my interest.

This year there are many ways you can show your gratitude for others. If you’re inclined to support others, consider making a donation to the ACLU if you’re feeling additionally charitable: ACLU

So whether you’re celebrating the end of your week, taking a break from taxes, or switching professions, come by and say hello! Hor'dourves will be provided and, of course, don't forget your party hat!

Why Should I Care?

The Department of Labor itself managed to muck up its own new rules, actually. If you’re an employee that makes under 47,476 dollars a year or a small business that pays folks less than 47,476, you’re about to be subject to the changes of these laws.

If this sounds complicated, it’s because it is. It’s worth noting the new president-elect wants to make small-businesses exempt from the new policy. "And there are 85 million hard working Americans who would agree with that," Trump said. "We have to address the issues of over-taxation and over-regulation and the lack of access to credit markets to get our small business owners thriving again. Rolling back the overtime regulation is just one example of the many regulations that need to be addressed to do that. We would love to see a delay or a carve-out of sorts for our small business owners." Even though enterprise coverage applies only to businesses with $500,000 or more in annual revenue, current FLSA rules already have a small-business exemption. The FLSA's individual coverage still applies to any employee whose work relates to interstate commerce.

What Should I Do?

If you’re an employer watch out for these key things before December 1st. It wouldn’t hurt to review and document any decisions you’ve made. The change takes effect December 1—a Thursday—and Tammy McCutchen says employers will probably want to avoid reclassifying an employee as nonexempt in the middle of a workweek. Since calculating overtime would be too complicated in this short of a time span, this would be a great time to think about the way you’ve currently classified your workers: it’s best to document your decision and the rationale you use to classify workers. If anything, now is a great time to document your current decisions, in case an audit occurs.

If you’re an employee, it definitely wouldn’t hurt to check out the overtime updates. This change is relevant if you work over 40 hours a week, period. If you meet very specific conditions, one of those being the $455 a week payment threshold, you are "not exempt," meaning you are already eligible for overtime. There are a variety of types of exemptions from overtime and the new rule only covers those that fall under "Executive, Administrative, Professional, Outside Sales and Computer Employees." Specific definitions of those roles can be found in the government’s Q&A. If you're a teacher, lawyer, or doctor, the new raise in the salary threshold might not apply to you, just as the old salary threshold may not have applied to you either.

As December 1st comes closer, be wary of any changes the new administration may put in place. It will be unlikely that they can stop or obstruct the FLSA changes, but it’s very likely they’ll change parts of it.

As many of you already know, if you have read our previous posts on the topic, EMV technology is the up-and-coming thing when it comes to payment solutions. In honor of the special “birthday” for EMV cards, we’ll give a recap and mention some important points you may have forgotten.

EMV means “Europay, Mastercard, Visa—these are the head honchos behind this new technology. What these cards do is keep your money more secure, through a tiny chip embedded inside. The chip creates new codes every single time you make a transaction. That’s a far cry from the old, magnetic stripe!

So, this sounds great, doesn’t it? What could be better than more credit card security?

Well, it is important for you, as a merchant. If you are a retailer and you don’t include options for receiving EMV cards as payment, you make yourself liable to incurring the costs of credit card fraud on a magnetic stripe card. In other words, if a customer can’t use EMV at your establishment, and his or her card’s information is stolen, you are held financially responsible!

The cool thing about EMV cards is that the stripe is still on them, so they can be used at non-EMV compatible businesses. Even though October 1st was considered the big day for EMV technology, it’s understood that the transition will be a gradual process, and many merchants will feel uncomfortable adjusting right away. But this is the future!

You would be doing yourself a great service by obtaining EMV payment processing equipment.

The history of capitalism proves that economic bubbles are commonplace. Their emergence is expected where liquid financial markets exist. We may already be on the verge of another economic bubble which can be dire by all measures. Most of the uninformed speculators wildly guess about the next boom and wait for the next major economic bubble and the inevitable collapse. The boom and the collapse cycle of the economy can be predicted by taking in account various markets and their growth. From asset management markets, stock markets, to debt markets, all indicate whether the economy is on the rise or is at the risk of doom.

INDICATORS OF AN ECONOMIC BUBBLE

Certain factors which indicate the probability of an economic bubble are:

Stock Markets

Stock markets play a vital role in creating an economic bubble. It is the first indicator which shows that an economic bubble is impending.

Liquidity

One of the most plausible factors which indicate the rise of an economic bubble is excessive liquidity in the economic systems. Excessive monetary liquidity includes; easy credit facilities, low interest rates, and large disposable income. Economic bubbles mostly occur when there is too much money available against too few assets, which in result causes both good assets and bad assets to appreciate excessively, thus creating an artificial monetary bubble.

Changes in Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

The economy’s current health can be easily determined by looking at the GDP. Increase in GDP of any nation indicates a strong economy.

Comparison of Income with the Cost of Living

Within an efficient economy, the cost of living should be in line with the wages and income earned by people. Increase in cost of living should keep up with the increase in income. If income is not increasing and cost of living keeps on climbing, this indicates the downfall of economy.

Unemployment Rate

The unemployment rate indicates the number of people working against the total labor force of a nation. It is an indication of the rise or decline of economy.

Interest Rates

Interest rates change when the economy is strong or weak. It shows the cost of borrowing money.

Currency Strength

With a strong currency, a country’s buying and selling power with other nation is strong.

STRATEGIES TO SAFEGUARD AGAINST A BUBBLE

Businesses need to make strategies to safeguard against the economic bubble and its impending doom. Some of the ways businesses can save themselves when there is economic bubble on the horizon are listed below:

Do Not Put All Your Eggs in One Basket

Never invest all your funds in one place. Always carry a diverse portfolio. When all your efforts and financial resources are tied down to one project or one sector of your business, its failure can lead you to lose everything.

Low Debt Strategy

Businesses should always focus on low debt strategy. With low debts, when things go wrong due to financial collapse, businesses can pay off their debts easily. If a business deals with high debt levels as compared to its assets, when it is time to settle the debts, business will not have anything left over after paying of the debts. Asset to debt ration should always be high.

Keep an Eye on the Indicators

The most important thing is to keep an eye on the financial indicators which show the rise or decline of the economy. If a business ignores the signs of an economic bubble, it is preparing itself for downfall. However, businesses which keep an eye out for the factors and indicators of a financial bubble can create strategies and implement them to cushion the effect of the downfall of the economy.

Low Risk Investments

Businesses should invest in low risk investments so that when an economic bubble bursts, some part of their portfolio is safe from its effect. Low risk investments though yield low profits, but they are still a safe choice.

The most important thing is to look at key indicators of an economic bubble and implement the strategies as soon as there is indication of a decline in economy.

Business and trade industries have been in serious need of a powerful and smart payment processing, giving them the ability to streamline credit card transactions while keeping their QuickBooks file updated. InstantAccept is such a new plug-in that provides suppleness and ease. It is simply a point of sale system for QuickBooks.

With InstantAccept you have access to whole client transaction records from anywhere, anytime, without even needing to launch QuickBooks—all you need to have is an internet connection. This liberates you from using a single computer with QuickBooks installed. You can easily assign payments to any client, customer, or invoice without opening your file.

While it provides ease of transactions and recording, it also helps keep QuickBooks from any remote location.

Unlike other systems of point of sale, InstantAccept has exclusive and extraordinary payment method support system. It has ability to support different payment options including online payment, personal payment, phone payment, etc. It offers an individual single user program that can process any sort of transaction through any device including Smart phones, tablets, desktops and laptops.

The diversified payment options of InstantAccept are elaborated below.

Cash: Payment through cash in person can also be accessed via InstantAccept

Debit/ATM Card: Any PIN and PIN less debit card including Visa, Discover, MasterCard, JCB, American Express, Diner etc are supported.

Credit Card: Different credit cards are also supported

Electronic Check Conversion

Card not present

ACH

Whether you have internet access on your tablet, desktop, mobile or laptop, your Instant Accept interface can accept payment via any of the above mentioned type from any location.

With all these benefits, InstantAccept can also be considered the flawless integration of QuickBooks. With the single click of a button, it has the ability to accept as well as record payments and transactions. Merchants can use InstantAccept to extend their business with its simple and easy features and can accept their payments through diversified modes at multiple places. It helps the businesses and owners to relieve their headache of bookkeeping.

The myriad of simple features of InstantAccept plug-in includes:

Ease of accepting payment from various different modes, locations, devices and websites

Ease of record keeping without even needing to access QuickBooks

Ease of securing business, transaction, client and customer’s data

Ease of managing POS and storefront with single screen

Ease of getting rid of rekeying dealings

InstantAccept is adaptable to any present, past, and future merchandise requirements. It is not only suitable and compatible to QuickBooks, but it can also be used with other record keeping applications like NetSuite, Sage, etc. This ability comes along with the privilege of using a current credit card processor by any merchant. InstantAccept is compatible with various different programs and processors.

It is a plug-in that also keeps the business’s efficiency top-notch. With InstantAccept, credit cards payments can be received three to four days earlier than it used to take by QuickBooks’s Intuit merchant account. Thus, money can easily be applied anywhere, at anytime, without waiting. Instant Accept can be very useful for any retail business. Moreover, it only takes a few minutes to transfer to the InstantAccept system. So, your precious working hours will not be wasted.

Along with providing facility of payment processing, InstantAccept allows you to create new clients and records, open and send invoices via emails, create new jobs, create different receipts, etc.

You can do any type of privacy setting in your InstantAccept profile. You can control your employees business by making individual accounts and giving special rights to each of them. You can give your employees and team the privilege to edit or view customer details or to edit QuickBooks data and record. In short you can allow them anything you want and can also restrict them from anything confidential. Thus, your employees can open or close invoices, accept or reject payment, open and see receipts while keeping the data and record secured.

This outstanding, easy to use, and best-for-business plug-in is being used by the experienced industrial veterans. Their knowledge, experience, excellence, and promises to innovation enabled them to predict the new obstacles, challenges, opportunities, and solutions. InstantAccept derived from the effort of formulating payment and fraud deterrence solutions for the large financial institutions and world’s leading banks.

InstantAccept also has a very good customer care service to help all of its customers keep their businesses at running well. Keeping the customer’s record and data protected within a PCI acquiescent atmosphere is what InstantAccept has to offer.